The present invention relates to automatic telephone answering apparatus and, particularly to an automatic telephone answering apparatus having a private message function and a call waiting function.
A variety of automatic telephone answering apparatus are developed so far to be able to automatically answer an incoming call during the user's absence.
This type of automatic telephone answering apparatus includes a recording unit composed of a tape recorder or a semiconductor memory to record an audio message. The recording unit of the automatic telephone answering apparatus is able to automatically send an outgoing message (hereinafter simply referred to as "OGM") so as to answer an incoming call and is able to record an incoming message (hereinafter simply referred to as "ICM") during the user's absence.
On the other hand, some automatic telephone answering apparatus have a function called a remote playback function to enable the owner to hear an ICM from the place where the owner has gone. Specifically, when the automatic telephone answering apparatus receives an incoming call during the owner's absence under the condition that an ICM was already recorded in the recording unit of the automatic telephone answering apparatus, if a predetermined control signal based on a DTMF (dual-tone multifrequency) signal is transmitted from an incoming call signal to the automatic telephone answering apparatus, then the automatic telephone answering apparatus can reproduce the ICM recorded on the recording unit.
Further, automatic telephone answering apparatus having a private message function also are commercially available on the market. The private message function is one of applications of the above-mentioned remote playback function.
According to the private message function, the owner of the automatic telephone answering apparatus prepares and records a private message for particular person (e.g., family, friend or secretary) on the automatic telephone answering apparatus. When the owner records a private message at home, the owner can record a private message on a tape at its particular position or in a semiconductor memory at its particular area from a microphone incorporated in the automatic telephone answering apparatus by depressing a private message recording button. If the owner wishes to record a private message from the place where the owner has gone, the owner is able to do the above recording by controlling the automatic telephone answering apparatus with a previously-set recording password (e.g., 2-digit input entered by keys) transmitted to the automatic telephone answering apparatus through a telephone line.
The owner of this automatic telephone answering apparatus sets a private message reproducing password (e.g., different 2-digit input entered by keys) on behalf of only the above particular person. When the private message reproducing password is input to the automatic telephone answering apparatus, only the particular position on the tape or the particular area of the semiconductor memory is reproduced with the result that only the private message that has been prepared for the particular person can be reproduced. Therefore, even when a number of ICMs for the owner are recorded on the automatic telephone answering apparatus, the ICMs cannot be reproduced by other person so long as other person does not learn the private message reproducing password. Thus, the ICMs can be protected. Moreover, if the particular person learns the private message recording password from the owner, then the particular person can leave an answering private message for the owner by sending a control signal to the automatic telephone answering apparatus so as to rewrite the private message. With this private message function, the owner and the particular person can communicate with each other from the places where they have gone by the automatic telephone answering apparatus.
However, after the owner has left the private message to the particular person by using the private message function from the place where the owner had gone, if the particular person wishes to answer the owner's private message, then the owner has to call the automatic telephone answering apparatus one more time in order to hear the recorded particular person's private message. Thus, the owner and the particular person have to make a call many time.